shod I go look right after it rain's ?

 

A warm rain does seem to help when it is “time” but doesn’t seem to be necessary. The biggest problem you will have if you are new to it is finding where the “patches” are since they grow in the same area year after year (as long as they still have their food source). I especially like going after a spring rain because it dampens the ground to a point where you can walk very quietly through the woods and not give your position away to another mushroom hunter (I try to keep my spots secret!).

Morels seem to like dead elms, chestnuts (I'm guessing that's what they were) and tulip populars (for starters). Many of my spots have one or more large stumps in the vicinity that are very rotted and crumbling away. They seem to like areas of forest that are recovering from a burn too (so I’ve heard). Then you might have to compete with other mushroom hunters! You may end up stumbling into an area where they grow but they’ve already been picked, or you may be fortunate enough to get there first.

Anyway I tend to go fairly rapidly between spots while scanning the ground, especially around likely areas. Then when I find one I stop and have a very close look right where I’m standing all the way around to see if there are any more in the area (I’d say you want to do a slow scan in at least a 50’ circle around any mushroom that you find to see if it has any buddies in the area, starting with it's immediate vicinity and working outwards). I also find them easier to see if I approach them from downhill and tend to arrange my search patterns so much of my scanning is done while looking uphill. They seem to favor old trails (such as an old lumber trail or some other defined but lightly used trail). When you find an area that is productive you have to watch where you put your feet at each step you take. Once I spot one I “work” my way to it, looking all around on my approach to see if I can spot any more…

 

Today I was mowing and i see what looked like a morel , (after looking for 4 weeks )I was real happy when i saw this (about 3 1/2in) morel sticking out of the yard , RIGHT in front of the lawn mower!!!!! So i kick it in Revere and fly up to the house to grab the camera and knife and my laundry bag. When i went back down, it was there the big yellow one [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] only like 3in but big enuf . As i look around i find out i mowed over 2 !! and there was another one i in the grass i didn't mow yet. so when i took them home i started mowing again standing up [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] . and 5 min later i FIND another one!! this one almost didn't make it . so i fly back to the house , get my stuff and get that one. but none where found around this one. in total i have 5 , (2 cut in half from mower).
Look's like fried morel's for me tomorrow!! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I feel confident in picking 4-5 different kinds, but my wife has been to several community education classes on them, & has bought several books... I let her pick anything but the basics... ( one of my favorites are "honey's", which are a "little brown mushroom" ( There are way more bad LBM's, than good ones )... so I let her pick those )... the ones I'll pick, are out of the group she ( they ), call the fool proof 5... these don't have anything nasty that looks much like them...

We are finally starting to get some rain around here ( been very dry this spring )... the Lilacs are starting to bloom, so the Morels should start popping up... love those fresh Morels, & Asparigus...Yum Yum

 

Went out today to get some more Morels, Picked about 10# last week.. Looking around and saw the grass move in the woods.. waited alittle and saw a head, Fawn maybe a week old.. then another moved.. they were no more then 20 ft from me.. I started talking at them, and they got up, and started looking me over. Great day.. Found some Morels, one over 10" and 3" around.. and them fawns, what a day

 

It wasn’t a good year for morels here in my part of MD. I ended up only finding a little over 60 over the entire season. On a good year (like what we had two years ago) I’ve found over 400 in one day! Must be something about the climate, we had some unusually warm spring days. Some things were out about 2 weeks early (certain bugs, grasses and other plants) while at the same time some things were late (like the May Apples in the woods). Oh well, will see what happens next year…

 

Be vewy vewy carefull picking mushrooms!

A chumm of mine had a fella on "sick leave" for quite some time last spring after injuries obtained from mushrooming. Seems he slipped and fell down a hill with plenty of rocks or something along those lines...

My chumm told me that he didn't realize that mushrooming was a "contact sport". LOL!

 

AWESOME find last weekend ( my wife is the forager ), but she wanted me to at least look, when my buds & I went riding, last week end... towards the end of the day, I found a fallen tree, with 40-50 lbs of primo sulfer shelves on it... these are one of my favorites ( & one of the "fool proof" mushrooms that I dare pick )... they were briliant orange / peach color, & piled high on my front rack... you should have seen the looks of the non-shoomers, in the parking lot, when I rolled up to the rig... made it worth while, riding slowly for one lap anyway...LOL...

 

Well I got some riding in this weekend... My wife is a big mushroom hunter, & she got the chance to go picking Chantrells, with an instructor from one of the classes she attended... My 750 is in bad need of an oil change, & the exhaust canister rewrapped, & work & the lawn have kept me too busy to get the much needed maintenance done...so we took up the 300 Prairie, & my KLR 650 ( gravel road bike )... We met Tom in Sturgeon Lake, MN, & followed him to a day parking area, for the Soo Line ATV trail... I expected to spend most of our time in the woods, & less time riding, which is basically what we did... well the Chantrells were really slow, as it was really dry, but the Bolitus's ( spelling ), were popping up all over, & we could have easily picked several hundred pounds, if we didn't keep changing locations, looking for the elusive Chantrell... ( you need to understand, that I like eating mushrooms, & hunting / picking them is fun, but I'll let the wife, or better yet Tom, who is one of the states formost experts, do the identifying )... I found one, that was not like the others we were finding, so I called Tom over to identify it... turns out that one was an "angle of death"... NOT the kind to put in the bag... I was kind of keeping an eye out for deer sheds... & though I didn't find any of them, I did find a "cool" bear skull... the blue berries were ripe, & there was fresh deer & bear sign, all over in the woods... the deer were eating the Bolitus's & the bear were eating the blue berries...

The trail system is much better than what we have here in southern Minnesota, it was much like the riding we did, over by Spooner, Wisconsin, where the ATV's are allowed into town, to gas up, & stop at the restaurants... I have a renued respect ( or lack there of, concerning brains ), for the single track riders... the area is very sandy, & being as dry as it was, we often came upon areas that had 8" of loose dry sugar sand... at that point, I was really wishing that I had my quad, the bike was not even fun to ride in several of the looser areas... it was so soft, that I actually burried it trying to go up a little hill, to park... but there were several bikes out there... the Soo Line trail, is an old rail spur, & is like a super highway for ATV's, there are several side trails that go off it, but it is easy to ride fast, & you can go a long way's on it... I highly recommend going through the section that has the Kettle River bridge... the bridge was just rebuilt by the railroad, a few years before they pulled the track, & has been renovated to suite snowmobiles & ATV's... it is several football fields long, & probably over 100 ft above the river... the views are awesome from the bridge... ( any pictures you may have seen, will not do it justice )... we did a night ride on the Soo Line trail, & went into Moose Lake, to get some coffee & cheese cake, after dark... since the trail was gravel, it is pretty dusty, with this dry weather... they have been adding lots of baseball sized rock, which made high speed riding on my bike difficult... we decided to leave the bike at the motel, where my wife & I were staying, rather than slow us down, going back to Tom's cabin, & my rig, so Sally & I doubled up on the 300 for the ride back ( we never ride double )... it was kind of romantic, ( & a little warmer for her, since there was a cold front moving through, & the temps had dropped substancially )... still can't say enough good things about the little 300 Prairie, as it always does whats asked of it, & has required very litte maintenance, over the years that we've had it, & it still has the power to pull 2 middle aged fat folks down the trail at over 40 mph... I highly recommend hitting the Soo Line trail area... you can litterally ride from Mille Lacs lake, to Duluth, to leach lake, or on into cental Wisconsin, all on ATV trails...

 

Hello, today I found some mushrooms that i think are chanterelle. I've looked all over but cant find any good pick's of them . Does anyone know of a good web site that can help me ? thank's.